


My Prince Will Come

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, not bestiality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a king. He insulted a witch, and so she turned him into a toad. So far, no surprises. He waits for a prince's kiss, unaware that it's actually a Prince he needs, though in the end it turns out that a Half-Blood Prince will do just as well.





	My Prince Will Come

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Snuffles-Groovy-Doghouse's moodboard (https://snuffles-groovy-doghouse.tumblr.com/post/174818910072/only-a-princes-kiss-can-break-the-spell)

Once upon a time there was a king, who was as vain as he was handsome. He lived in a grand castle surrounded by servants who did his every bidding. His life was a happy one, though life was hard for his subjects who were at the mercy of his every whim. He didn’t care about them, as they were beneath him. All he cared about was being able to do exactly as he pleased, regardless of the consequences, as other people would be the ones to pay the price for anything he chose to do.

It was part way through his reign that he decided to take a bride, so he welcomed all the eligible young women to his castle so that he could judge which one was most suitable for him. He knew that it would be difficult for him to find someone worthy of his attention, and he was sadly disappointed.

“Too old, too young,” he said as he observed them, “Too thin, too fat. Too ugly, all of them are just too ugly.”

And so he continued, finding fault with every lady he laid eyes on, never once hesitating to dismiss them with cruel words. It might have continued this way, until he had run out of all the eligible ladies in the country, had one of those who presented herself not been a witch. She was not beautiful, but she was intelligent, from a long line of witches and wizards. She watched the hurt on the faces around her, the manner in which the servants flinched away from the temper of their wicked master. When he came to her, she too was greeted with mocking derision.

“What an ugly hag, just look at her nose,” the king said to his attendant as they stood in front of her, and unlike the others she smiled a calm smile.

“Your majesty,” she said, with a curtsey, “When you have learnt humility and humanity, enough to make a Prince care enough about your plight to kiss you, then you may be restored to your true form. Until then, I think the world should see how ugly your heart is.”

The king turned to look at his attendant in confusion, but as he did so he realised that something had changed. The world seemed larger than it had been before, all he could see were shoes looming before him. Above him were cries of alarm, and startled he hopped away where he would not be trodden on. He hopped away until he got to the pond where he had so often sat and gazed upon his own reflection, wondering if he would ever find anyone to compare to his beauty. Meaning to calm himself with the comfort of his own visage, he gazed into the waters, and saw only an ugly toad gazing back.

And so it was, that the king for all of his wickedness was turned into an ugly toad by the witch. She was burnt at the stake, as witches often were in those days, though it did the king no good. The kingdom continued happily without him, crowning his younger brother, a less handsome but considerably nicer man. Everyone was happy, except the toad who hopped miserably about the castle gardens, eating flies and feeling sorry for himself. He tried to seek out princes, who seemed to come and go before his eyes as if time was passing him by, but they all flinched away from the ugly toad hopping towards them, throwing stones and crying out in disgust. 

The witch’s curse was strong, and it continued to last. The years past, and the crown changed hands successively while outside the king who had been a man but was now a toad lived miserably. He might have continued for all of eternity, watching a succession of people passing by as he sulked, unwilling to see his reflection in the ponds and yet requiring water for his amphibious body, but by chance one day an old lady was wandering through the park with a young boy, who crouched down beside him and started to chatter away. 

He had almost lost all hope, so he made no objection when they picked him up and took him home with them. The boy named him Trevor, and he realised that it had been a long time since anyone had called him by a name. The boy was called Neville, and he was kind to the king who became used to being called Trevor. It was not the respect he was once used to. Before, he had been bowed to but now he was petted by chubby fingers. And yet Trevor grew to appreciate his new life, as he had never before. He might be an ugly toad, but he was loved. He had never truly been loved before. He had been feared and he had loved himself, but no one else had really loved him.

The boy was well intentioned, and cared for him enough that when he received his Hogwarts letter Trevor was packed along with his wand as a precious item. It was then, on the train, that he remembered the witch’s words. How she had cursed him, and if she had cursed him then another magical person might be able to break the spell. Not Neville, he realised that. Neville was a sweet boy, but his talents lay in petting ugly toads not using his brain. So Trevor began to explore, first the train and then the castle.

He searched high and low, despairing at times how no matter how talented the teachers might be none of them could understand him. He couldn’t make his plight known, and he couldn’t do anything himself. There followed another wave of despair, at the hope having been robbed from him once again. He resigned himself to his fate, and resolved to be a good toad for Neville, who liked to take him everywhere, even to his classes.

It was in one of those classes that he saw a face that for a while seemed familiar to him. He had seen a nose of that shape before, and he remembered the long black hair of the witch who had cursed him. He remembered how he had called her ugly, just as he had called all the other women ugly. Had he encountered this wizard then, he would have called him ugly too, as he called everyone, without any consideration for the way it might feel. He had never known what it was like to be insulted and belittled, to be hurt by the cruel words of others.

Now he got to witness the pain the words this man dealt out on his poor Neville, who he agreed wasn’t the brightest or the most handsome but he had grown to appreciate the boy’s kind heart. At the same time as wishing that an awful fate might befall him, he also found himself drawn to the strange man who looked so much like the witch whose face seemed to be almost seared into his mind. While Neville was sleeping, he went searching, watching the man. Neville, as he grew, become more and more preoccupied by the war that was developing, involving himself with his friends. He paid less attention to Trevor, but Trevor didn’t mind. He was happy that Neville was finally managing to make friends properly. A small part of him envied Neville. He had never had friends like Neville did, he had merely had himself and an army of servants.

It gave him more time to devote to exploring the mystery that was Severus Snape. Had he not been spending more time lurking in the dark corners of corridors watching the man he might entirely have missed hearing him referred to as being the Half-Blood Prince, a title that ran through his small, toad brain. He wondered then, if the man who became Headmaster could be a descendent of the witch who had cursed him, or more likely one of her sibling’s descendants, given that she had been burnt at the stake. So he wriggled carefully, knowing that Neville had more on his mind than the whereabouts of his wayward toad, and managed to crawl into the Headmaster’s Office.

“Spying on me?” Severus asked, in that rich voice that Trevor had come to associate with insults. They could be harsh, just like Trevor had once been a wicked king with a cruel tongue, and yet Trevor was starting to see that beneath the exterior harshness and the hooked nose there was a person, just as there was a person hidden within the ugly toad that he had become.

He skulked as Severus plotted. He watched, and he wished that he was more than just a toad, so he could help Severus and Neville, who seemed to be on the same side no matter how things might appear. He wished he had been a better king, and that he could at least be a decent toad. He didn’t mind anymore, that he was an ugly toad.

“Lily used to kiss frogs and toads,” Severus said one day, with a smile that made his face more attractive, “Just incase they were enchanted princes.”

He petted Trevor, and then seemed to roll his eyes, as if wondering why he was letting the toad be in his office. But Trevor had realised that he had a kinder heart than he let on, and that with Severus he was safe even if he had once been scared that the Potions Master would poison him, just as he had realised that he himself had depths of character that had improved with his enchantment.

Trevor wasn’t expecting the kiss on the top of his head, and neither of them were expecting him to transform suddenly into his human body, knocking all the papers off Severus’s desk. For a moment they stared at each other, and then Trevor cleared his throat in a croaky manner, starting to explain.

“Prince not prince,” Severus murmured, though it meant nothing to Trevor. But Severus’s mind was on other things, barely able to pay attention to the fact that he had broken the curse on Trevor. His mind was full of Voldemort, the children in the castle and his duty.

Trevor had no magic, he was just a normal man, but he had been listening to the classes Neville attended. He had, slowly and to his great chagrin, fallen for the man who had once taught Potions. As he was hiding away from the witches and wizards fighting, he came across Severus on the verge of bleeding to death. He remembered the lessons he had learnt about potions to replenish blood, which given the state of the castle he had taken with him. He remembered the lessons he had learnt from Neville of being kind. He remembered the witch and the manner in which Severus had broken his curse. And so, Severus was saved.

Trevor was not sure what had become of his kingdom, but he found that his priorities had changed. He felt that he had grown through his experiences, to become a better person, and so it was that he set out to woo Severus. He might not be perfect, but neither was he an ugly toad anymore. He knew that the first step was to whisk Severus away from the dangers of the battle field and nurse him lovingly back to health, which he did. Tender care and kindness had a far greater affect than his good looks or tyrannical manner ever had, and so they lived happily ever after. Neville, when he found out, was very confused, but kindhearted enough to be happy for them. He just required some therapy.

The End.


End file.
